Most Napa Valley Wineries Closed Because of Raging Wildfires

It’s too soon to tell how these wildfires will impact the grape harvest and local tourism.

— Dennis Schaal

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The Napa Valley Vintners association in California says most wineries were closed Monday because of power outages, evacuation orders and the inability of employees to get to work.

The trade association said Monday that it does not have verifiable information on winery buildings that burned down or the impact the fires would have on the 2017 harvest.

Workers had picked most grapes for the season before fires broke out.

The wind-driven wildfires came as Napa and Sonoma counties were finishing highly anticipated harvests of wine grapes. Workers on Monday should have been picking and processing the ripe grapes that would make chardonnay and other wines.

At least two wineries were destroyed and many others damaged.

Authorities have imposed a sunset-to-sunrise curfew in the city of Santa Rosa, California and say they are on the lookout for looters as firefighters battle blazes raging in California wine country.

Acting police Chief Craig Schwartz said Monday the curfew will be enforced in a mandatory evacuation zone, with violators possibly subject to arrest.

Other officials said they were beginning to get reports of looting in areas affected by fires.

Santa Rosa has about 175,000 residents.

Officials say at least seven more people have died in fast-moving wildfires in California wine country, bringing the total number of fatalities to 10.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office tweeted Monday that seven fire-related deaths were reported from fires there.

California fire officials reported earlier that two people died in Napa County and one died in Mendocino County.

Trailer park residents in California wine country had little time to escape before flames destroyed their homes.

Nancy Cook said Monday that her dogs alerted her to the wildfire that quickly came blowing over a hill early in the morning and ignited trees in the Journey’s End trailer park in Santa Rosa.

The fire is one of the most destructive of more than a dozen in the region.

Cook says she pounded on neighbors’ doors before fleeing with her husband, dogs and medications.

She and other residents didn’t have time to round up their cats and had to leave them behind in their haste. Some fled in their pajamas and left their wallets.

One person had to abandon a classic hotrod car that burned.

Cook says she thinks everyone in the over-55 community escaped, though most residents lost everything they owned.

Photo Credit: Smoke rises as a wildfire burns in the hills east of Napa, California October 9, 2017. Wildfires whipped by powerful winds swept through Northern California sending residents on a headlong flight to safety through smoke and flames as homes burned. Michael Short / San Francisco Chronicle via Associated Press